With Child
by GravityMuse
Summary: Nothing about the Halliwell women can be defined as normal -- especially their pregnancies.
1. Phoebe

_**A/N**: My idea was to write about each of the pregnancies experienced on Charmed. The first one I'd had in my head for quite some time, based on a line of dialogue from "Just Harried" that struck me as possibly much darker than it sounded. I hit a case of writer's block much sooner than expected: after the first one came so easily, the subsequent ones have been much harder to write. But over the past two days, I broke the next four, so I'm posting what I have as motivation for the rest. I hope you enjoy!_

_**Phoebe**_

Patty loves being pregnant, more than almost anything else. She loves the way Victor looks at her, loves taking his hand and pressing it against her stomach, listening to him talk to the daughter they are both dying to meet. She loves the way it makes her feel, beautiful and sexy and mature and capable, strong enough to kick her mother out of the Manor and send her back to her own home for a few months or a few years, long enough for Patty to take control over her own family, her own life. And she loves the new powers that have accompanied each of her pregnancies: with Prue, the ability to move objects with her mind; with Piper, being able to not just slow down time, but to speed it up; and now, with the daughter they'll name Phoebe after her favorite aunt, the power of premonition.

Seeing the future in short, brief glimpses is incredibly intoxicating for Patty. Her first premonition was sharp, specific, detailed; since then, they've come and gone, some stronger, some merely outlines of images. Some she recognizes and responds to immediately: the demon who attacks the manor on an afternoon when Prue is home sick from school; the warlock approaching her mother's house which sent Patty running for the phone. Others are less clear, involving people and places so far in the future – a baseball player collapsing in heap, a baby boy surrounded by a protective bubble, a man so darkly handsome he makes her gasp before he morphs into a hellish demon – she won't ever know what they mean.

Victor treats it like a parlor game, which is how he handles magic when things are at their best between them. He can no longer ignore it completely, not with Prue retrieving toys taken away from her and put on top of the refrigerator with her mind, or Piper freezing the neighbor's son during one of his frequent games of cops and robbers.

"Tell me what you see," he says to Patty, his voice low and teasing, as he holds her to chest at night.

"I see you, changing diapers," she teases back.

It isn't always easy; it never is, but somehow, things are more certain when she is pregnant. Victor moved back the moment she told him about the baby, and she'd been able to quit her job at the diner, stay home all day with her girls, and the four of them are a family, as a real of a family as they can be. She wears the short, pretty, flowered dresses she'd bought when she was pregnant the first time, she cooks dinner, she reads bedtime stories to her girls, and at night, she sits in the backyard with her husband and watches the stars.

"This is what is should always be like," she sighs contentedly one night, leaning back on a pillow stolen from the living room as she looked up at the heavens while Victor rubs her feet.

"What, you always fat, me always subservient?"

She smiles up at him. "I mean, like this. Quiet, and peaceful. A houseful of girls, safe and happy."

"No demons bursting through the front door. No mothers nagging us about training our daughters to be uber-witches. No whitelighters orbing in at all hours of the day and night."

"Honey, Sam's not that bad. And he's just protecting me, protecting us."

"My point is, I like it better when we don't need Sam. Or Penny, for that matter. I know it's old fashioned of me, but I want to be the one protecting my family."

"You are," Patty says. "In all the important ways. You are a wonderful father to Prue and Piper, and I have a feeling that you are going to be an even more wonderful father to our next daughter. I can tell already: she's going to be a real daddy's girl."

"Is that what your premonition tells you?"

Patty closes her eyes, and wills her daughter to give her a glimpse of their future, of Patty and Victor and their three daughters, all happy and loving together, but nothing comes.

"That's exactly what I see," she lies.

Two weeks later, Patty is standing in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast, when a premonition hits her, stronger and clearer and sharper than any other. It comes on with a white heat, giving her a headache so strong and so fast she drops the dishes in her hands and clutches at the kitchen counter for balance. At first, she thinks it is the past: she sees herself on the day of her wedding, her hair pulled back from her face with trembling hands. But as the image grows sharper, she realizes it is not herself, but someone who looks so much like her, in a different white dress, a different set of troubles haunting her brown eyes, a hope mixed with fear, easily the eyes of a witch in love with a mortal.

"Piper," she murmurs to herself, sensing rather than recognizing her second daughter as the beautiful bride. The image widens, and she sees herself, older, between two lovely young women, in identical pink dresses with dark hair shining down their backs, and Prue is so obviously the girl on her left, with her snub nose and blue eyes, and the daughter on her right has to be Phoebe, and she can see Victor waiting downstairs, and her mother, too, flanking the nervous blond-haired young man who will marry her middle child as she embraces her girls.

"Thank you," she whispers, her hands clutching her stomach as her water breaks, as wetness floods her legs, her shoes, jolting her out of this future moment and back into the present.

For the rest of her life, she will carry the image in the back of her mind, and it will cause her to be less careful, more brave, as she rushes into danger and faces demons more powerful than she'd ever taken on before, all by herself. It will give her the confidence to make the wrong decisions, because no warlock can take away her future with her family; no love affair will permanently separate her from Victor.

At the moment of her death, the image will come to her again, and her very last thought will be the horrible realization that the entire point of a premonition is the future is flexible, ever-changing, that it only shows potential, and was not the promise Patty had mistakenly believed it to be.


	2. Chris

**Chris**

It's so different this time. Back before Wyatt, and even just after, when he was especially adorable and sweet and there just wasn't enough of him to go around, when Leo and Piper planned on having many, many more, Piper had assumed that all her pregnancies would be exactly the same.

"It's not just the lack of self-healing," she says, lying on her back in the massively large four-post wood bed in a room that is certainly not her own, but is a far distant substitute, at least for now. She turns her head so she can look at Leo, lying beside her, his head propped on his hand. He is fully dressed; he even kept his shoes on, and therefore has his feet twisted back in what is bound to be an uncomfortable way, because he's too polite to put his sneakers on the bed, and too cautious of this delicate thing between them to remove them.

"Well, it's a pretty big change all around," he says. "Knowing your entire pregnancy exactly who you're carrying as the adult he'll eventually become had to be pretty unbelievable. Quite a difference from all those months we expected Melinda, and got Wyatt."

Piper smiles at the memory. "I wonder where we got the name Christopher," she muses. "I was thinking earlier about how we never chose names together – Melinda and Chris were presented to us from their future selves, and I kind of sprung Wyatt Matthew on you after the fact. All part of the not-being-normal package, I guess."

He's quiet for a moment, and as she watches him and waits for him to speak, she wishes she could reach out to him, take his hand and put it on her stomach so he can feel their son inside of her. But she holds back. They've been moving slowly toward something, but what that something is, it's yet to be defined. They've tried talking about the future, but it's too big, the factors too massive and unyielding, it's impossible to fit the pieces, come up with some sort of compromise that would allow them to be together.

So they talk about everything else, which, surprisingly, is a lot.

"It was my father's name," he finally answers, his green eyes dark and focused. There is so much left unsaid between them, and his words remind Piper there's still a lot she has to learn about this man she continues to think of as her husband.

"I like it," she says. "It seems right. What do you think of Bennett as a middle name?"

"Christopher Bennett Halliwell. It's perfect."

"What do you think?" she says to the baby living inside her. "Do you want to be named for your grandfathers?" That's another big change. The belly-talks from her sisters, from Leo, which were a frequent and occasionally annoying aspect of her first pregnancy have decreased significantly all around, most likely due to the fact that adult Chris has been such a presence in their lives, they'd all feel kind of silly addressing him in baby-voices.

Piper feels a shiver envelop her body; magic school can be a cold place, which is one of the many reasons she's anxious to leave. It's right now, however, the safest place for her, for Wyatt, for the baby living inside her, and, strangely enough, the safest place for Leo. After Gideon's endless nagging, his insistence that Leo was putting all Elders in danger by remaining on Earth, Piper finally snapped, "Well, if it's so unsafe, why doesn't Leo just stay here?" She'd never seen the Elder go speechless before, and to be honest, it was rather gratifying.

"Are you cold?" Leo asks, his eyes filled with concern.

"Always," she answers.

"Can I get you something? A warmer sweater, a heavier blanket?"

"You know that won't matter." She looks at him straight on, and wills him to remember how it was with Wyatt, how only one thing could stop the chills.

"Do you want me to…hold you?" The hesitation in his voice almost breaks her heart; she misses the confidence with which he used to approach her. Now, every step is so measured.

"I do," she says, hoping its enough.

He moves carefully, closing the distance between them on this enormous bed, and his capable arms reach for her, enveloping her against his chest. It's instantly familiar, the way he used to hold her all the time, like this, supporting her with his whole body, his arms wrapped around her and his hands resting on their baby inside her. Different bed, different baby, entirely different set of circumstances, but when she closes her eyes, and leans back just enough to feel his warm breath on her face, it feels exactly the same as it did the first time, when they were on the cusp of becoming a family.

The thing is, she needs him as much as she wants him. It's more than just her own desires to have her husband back. She's seen the future, she's seen the way her sons turn out without him around: one, suspicious and cold and hardened and neurotic; the other, evil. She now knows more than anything how important it is to Wyatt, to Chris, to have their father as a permanent presence in their lives.

She wishes she could say this to him, just once.

Instead, she says nothing, just warms herself against him, feeling the love that's always been between them course its way through her whole body, from him to her to the son who has to know how much he's wanted and expected and loved, by both his parents, every day of his life. That is her responsibility, and she will take it very seriously, but for now, for these last few precious moments he lives inside her, he's just a normal baby, waiting to be born.

_**A/N**: I never bought into the theory that "Perry" was Chris's middle name; I believe it was something he chose to mask his identity from the Charmed Ones. Besides, Piper's big into naming her children after people she loves, and considering how close Victor and Chris are in the future, it seemed like something she'd do. _


	3. Phoebe's first daughter

_**A/N: **This is where it gets a bit more complicated for me! I've had to start relying on my own version of the Halliwell family, as we're not given much canon with Phoebe and Paige's daughters. Thank you so much for the reviews & for marking this as a favorite -- they are awesome and they rock, and they have pushed me to finish the next three. _

**(Phoebe and Coop's first daughter)**

"Tell me about your appointment – which tests did they run? What did the doctor say about the spotting you had last week – it's nothing to be worried about, right? How are your sodium levels? You did tell them about the family history of toxemia, right? You should really have your OBGYN give Dr. O'Brien a call to talk about the nightmare that was Chris's delivery, so she's prepared, just in case."

The questions and the comments come like quickfire, rapidly shot at her across the table they keep in the attic for conjuring, spells, and potions.

"Will you stop it? There's absolutely nothing to worry about. Now leave me alone -- I need to focus." Phoebe bats away her sister's questions, and tries to focus on the ingredients she's adding to the pot.

She tosses another pinch of mandrake into the potion, and after the subsequent explosion, gives it a quick stir. Now all she has to do is wait twenty minutes for everything to combine and settle. Meanwhile, she's going to enjoy the feeling of being fat and happy and five months pregnant, without any of the distractions Piper seems determined to throw at her.

Truth is, Phoebe has never loved anything as much as she loves being pregnant. She loves how shiny her hair has become. She loves the way her assistant keeps her office stocked with scented candles and indulgently luxurious hand creams and the most fantastic blueberry muffins from the bakery across the street. And she loves the way Coop looks at her, like he still cannot believe this is really his life, and not some sort of wonderful dream he's about to wake up from.

What she does not love is the way her sisters have been treating her.

Paige has been pretty much ignoring her, suddenly too busy with Henry or her part-time job as a consultant for victims' rights at the station or whatever it is the Elders have her running around doing with this whitelighter nonsense she's suddenly so enthused about. She can't help but think her baby sister's ignoring her, but so far it's just a nagging feeling, nothing she's followed up on. Truth is, Phoebe is busy, too, with her column and Coop and practicing for the baby by taking Wyatt and Chris for an afternoon at least once a week, so she hasn't been calling Paige as much, either.

But right now, the silent treatment from Paige is preferable to the overbearing attention of Piper, who is practically smothering her with her advice and her concerns.

"Are you sure you should even be around those ingredients now? They can highly toxic."

"Piper, you have to calm down. Everything's fine."

"I worry! That's what I do. You know that."

"But there's nothing to worry about." Phoebe sighs, and checks the clock on her cell phone. Eighteen more minutes. "We're fine, we're perfect, we're going to be OK. I've seen the future. I know she's going to turn out beautiful."

"But nothing's ever certain. Just because you saw one potential version of the future," Piper says for perhaps the eighty-third time, "doesn't mean it's absolute. Don't forget, the original vision of your daughter was predicated on the Avatar's plans, and we know how well that turned out. You still could be carrying a little boy in there."

Phoebe hands go straight to her stomach. "No. I know for certain she's a girl. I feel it my blood, Piper."

"Do you even remember my first pregnancy? Have you met my son, who we referred to as your niece for nine freakin' months?"

It's a familiar conversation, and Phoebe as always has to bite her lip from reminding her sister that she has the power of premonition, and because of that, she knows the difference between potential and inevitable. Her daughter is different from the little girl Piper saw in her own future, though Phoebe can't explain why. It's just something she knows.

"Speaking of that," Phoebe says, thrilled to realize she's come up with the perfect way to change the subject. "Have you and Leo decided when you're going to try again?"

"Well, technically, we've been 'trying' ever since he's been back, and quite a lot," Piper says with a smile that stretches all the way across her face.

"Oh, ew," Phoebe jokes and makes a face like she always does when her sister shares too much about her sex life, even though Phoebe's asked plenty of prying questions over the past eight years.

"So, yeah. We are. It's a good time for us – for all the demon-related reasons, of course, but also because Chris and Wyatt are at a nice age to become brothers again, and we're just so – I don't know – better than we've ever been. We've always had these periods of adjustments after big changes that have not gone so smoothly."

"I remember them well," Phoebe groans. She knows Piper and Leo's marriage better than almost anything. Certainly better than her own. "I lived through them."

"Well, that didn't happen this time. In fact, it's been the complete opposite."

"I'm so glad to hear that." Getting Piper talking about Leo is a good idea -- it distracts her from worrying so much about Phoebe. "Sometimes I think that the easy part is finding your soul mate – the hard part is living with him."

"Says the woman who's been married, what, four whole months now?"

"Well, not for me, of course," Phoebe says with a smile. "For me, the hard part was finding Coop, and trusting that I could even be with him, and then admitting I wanted him, and then realizing it wasn't just want, but love. After all that, marriage has been a snap."

And it was. As a roommate, Coop was ideal: he always knew when she needed him around, and when she wanted space, without her having to say anything. As a husband, he's learned how to do everything, from cooking dinner to knowing exactly how she wants to be held at night. Nothing could be easier.

The intense smell of gingerroot began wafting out of the pot, which Phoebe recognizes as the final step.

"It's ready!" She exclaims, and, before Piper can protest, reaches into the bubbling liquid and smoothly lifts out a series of items, which she triumphantly hands to her sister.

"A passport? A marriage certificate? A New Jersey driver's license?"

"Well, Coop's gotta be from somewhere." Phoebe grins.

"Did you just conjure up a past for your magical husband?"

"Oh, come on. Little Miss 'I used white-out to change the year on my husband's birth certificate' has no right to lecture me. Besides, it's not personal gain. Coop needs a social security card if he's going to be on my health insurance plan, and next week, we're going to get him one. And a California driver's license, even a voter registration card, so he can be a proud American, and help elect our next president."

"You are too much." Piper shakes her head, looking over the documents. "Colin David Cooper?"

"Coop is a nickname," Phoebe smiles. "He's used David Cooper as his human alias when he's needed one. And I've always liked the name Colin."

"Speaking of names," Piper says, "have you decided on the baby's?"

"Yes, actually. I have." She'd picked the name months ago – before anything else really. She'd gotten pregnant the very first time she'd slept with Coop, the night of the Charmed One's last battle, after he'd returned her mom and grams to their own times. After first dreaming of him, and then wanting him but convincing herself she couldn't have him, the reality of their first night together was nothing short of amazing. Coop had proposed that same night, at two o'clock in the morning: she'd just returned to the bedroom – wrapped in a sheet because she wasn't yet comfortable about being completely naked around him – with a bottle of water from the kitchen, and he looked at her with his adoring brown eyes and said, "Marry me. Please."

It was the "please" that got her, melted every last one of her defenses and pushed the "yes" –unexpectedly – out of her mouth. But as soon as the word escaped, she knew it was what she wanted.

Coop left immediately to square things away with his bosses by arranging for a smaller caseload, close to home, after explaining that Cupids didn't exactly travel like whitelighters. "We don't have that instant orb and you're there thing," he said. "I'll be gone ten days, two weeks tops."

"Two weeks? But we just got engaged!"

"It will go fast. And then we'll have the rest of our lives together. I promise. You'll hear from me every day."

And she did: little notes on her computer, cards left on her pillow, orchids – Prue taught her they were the best flowers – on her kitchen counter. Every day, a sign of his love would appear in her apartment.

It was during those two weeks, waiting for Coop to return, that she realized she wasn't alone. She'd wanted to be pregnant for so long now, so badly she'd even convinced herself she was during the whole Dex debacle, she could barely believe it. But she was.

And now she was happier than she'd ever been, and it was perfect.

"So, what is it?" Piper is saying. "What's the name?"

"Oh, I don't want to tell anyone until she's born."

"I'm not anyone, Pheebs. I'm your sister."

"Well, I'm naming her after someone very special."

"I kind of wanted to talk to you about that," Piper says, clutching at a bag full of empty potion bottles on the table between them. "So it's not that we have any claims to the name Prudence, but we are trying to get pregnant again as you know, and we both really want a daughter, and that's the name we've always talked about, Leo and me, but who knows if we even will ever have a girl, and as the mother of the first Halliwell daughter of the next generation, you have full rights to name your baby whatever you want, and I totally understand it if you want to honor Prue, because someone should-–"

"Piper," Phoebe interrupts her sister's ramblings. "Can you stop?"

Her sister shuts up, but she still won't meet her eyes, instead busies her hands with cleaning up the various roots and herbs sprinkled across the table.

"Look, I don't know if you remember this," Phoebe begins, "but when we went back to the 1600s, to help Charlotte deliver her baby--"

"So you're thinking of the name Melinda. OK. I mean, again, I don't have any rights to that name or any name, although did I ever tell you Leo has always really liked it, and when Melinda Warren was here, in our time, she actually was partially responsible for getting us together, see, she told me–-"

"Piper!" This time she's louder, less patient. "Would you just shut up and let me talk?" She takes a breath, and before her sister can fill the silence, begins speaking quickly. "When we went to the past, I met a soothsayer, who said he could tell me the first initial of my true love. It was the letter 'C.'"

"Phoebe," Piper breathes. "You never told me that."

"Well, it happened. For awhile, I thought it meant Cole, and now, with Coop, I'm sure it means him. Hence, the name Colin on his driver's license, even though my husband looks nothing like a Colin, but it was the first guy's name that started with a C that came to mind. Anyway, I believe my daughter will be my true love, too."

"I don't get it," Piper says, giving Phoebe a blank stare.

"Her name will be Ciera."

"Keera?"

"C-I-E-R-A. It's Gaelic. It means, one who sees."

"Oh. Ciera. Pheebs, that's beautiful."

"Yup. Ciera Piper Halliwell Cooper." She'd repeated the name over and over to herself, every day now for almost five months, but it felt good to finally say it out loud to someone else. It is, she decided, the most beautiful name in all the world.

"Really?"

"Really. After my brave and sweet and strong and stubborn as all hell big sister. I want her to be just like you, you know that."

Piper lunges across the table, throwing her arms around her sister's neck. Phoebe lets out a laugh, before untangling herself from Piper's embrace.

"I can't believe you thought I'd steal your name," Phoebe says. "If I wasn't so happy right now, I'd be hurt."

"Well, it's not like we ever had any real claim to it."

"Oh, none at all, except you met your future daughter named Melinda, and you mentioned Prudence Melinda only every day for nine months when you were pregnant with Wyatt. I wouldn't take that from you, Piper."

"You'll forgive me, though, won't you?" Piper throws her arms around her neck once again, and Phoebe feels the baby kick inside her, almost as if she's responding to her namesake, wanting already to be a considered part of the Halliwell family.


	4. Paige

_**A/N:** OK, I promise there will be light, happy, fun pregnancy moments in the future -- just not today. Or tomorrow. Still loving the reviews, and all the favorite story notices in my inbox. Y'all rock.  
_

**Paige**

It's a mistake. It has to be a mistake.

Three young daughters, a husband who has left her, a meddling mother, a boyfriend she never sees, and demons attacking, left and right. Patty Halliwell has enough going on in her life right now; the last thing she needs is this.

The test sits on the counter, the result a stunningly positive one. The test only confirmed her fears: she is two months pregnant, which is not only improbable, but impossible.

She does some quick math on her fingers. Is there any chance Victor -- ? No. Two months puts her safely in worst case scenario land.

"How is this even possible?" She asked Penny that morning. For a moment, she thought she wouldn't tell her mother, but then the second she saw her steely eyes, she caved. It was no use. Penny would have known anyways. "Whitelighters aren't even alive, technically. How can they reproduce?"

"Well, if they've got the parts, they've obviously got the juice."

"Mother!"

"What?" Penny shot her a look. "You're the one who is sleeping with your whitelighter, against all my advice, I may add. Let's see – we've had Halliwell ancestors mate with demons, warlocks, even a leprechaun once, but I don't think we've ever had this in our family before. I'll check the book – and the family tree."

Now, the girls are asleep, and her mother's been up in the attic for hours. Patty sits alone in her room, the window open and the cool December San Francisco air surrounds her. She breathes it in deeply, and for a moment, imagines the tiny girl growing inside her. Who will she look like? Prue and Phoebe take after their father, Patty has always thought, though her mother insists that all three of them are Halliwells, through and through. Will she look like Sam? How will his features translate onto a baby girl? She can't fully imagine it, can't anticipate being pregnant again, the morning sickness, the swollen ankles, the dealing with three small girls – Phoebe is still a baby! – and preparing for a fourth.

Four girls. How can that be possible? Wasn't she only prophesied to give birth to three?

She can't think about that. She can't even imagine what this means in the greater sense, what gifts a half-witch, half-whitelighter baby would possess.

She can't stay here, alone in her room, any longer, and she can't call Sam – he has a situation with a charge and he's asked her only to contact him if it's an emergency, which this won't be for another seven months or so. Besides, she doesn't want to see him right now. She's afraid she'll get angry at him, and she can't. It's not –

She doesn't finish the thought. Shutting the window, she looks out one last time at the quiet street, the city lights barely visible in the distance, and trudges upstairs to the attic.

"Mother, what are you doing?"

"Shhh," Penny says, her brow furrowed as she stands over the book. She looks exhausted, as if she's been casting spells for hours. "Come here, and take my hands."

Patty does as she's told, crossing the room until she's facing her mother, the book between them, and holds out her hands, palms facing up. Her mother's touch is cool, icy almost, and she murmurs something quickly over their clasped fingers in a language Patty doesn't recognize.

"What are you doing?" She asks when her mother is done, still holding onto her hands.

"I'm cloaking your pregnancy. From the elders, from your daughters, from everyone. No one will ever know about this. They can't have her, Patty. They won't."

"The elders? Do you really think they'd try --?"

"Patty, honey, not only is there not another whitelighter on any branch of our family tree, but there's no recorded history of a whitelighter reproducing, ever. They are such control freaks up there, do you think there's any way in hell they'd let you raise this baby alongside your other daughters?"

"Well, we can't let that happen. We won't!"

"I know. The spell should hold. It's very, very strong – it took the best of my magic, and a good deal of our ancestors', too. We'll keep you protected. We'll keep this secret."

"But – Sam?"

"Sam has to know, I suppose. But you have to make him come around to our way first. You understand that, don't you?"

"I will." Sam loves her; more than reason, sometimes. It is perhaps the only thing Patty is sure about, and she knows he'll do whatever she tells him to, even if it goes against everything he believes.

"Mom," Patty says, and suddenly, it's like she's a small child again, as Penny takes her into her arms, and holds her close against her chest.

"Everything's going to be all right. I promise, my dear. I won't let anything happen to you or your girls – I'll protect you. I always will."

She almost believes her. For a second, in this attic, surrounded by the specter of the women who have came before them, Patty for just a moment believes that everything will be fine, that she will raise all four of her daughters, with or without Sam, with or without Victor, and the girls will all grow up happy and strong and beautiful and loved.

"You do realize," Penny says, her quiet voice unmistakably echoing through the empty attic, "once she's born, you'll have to give her up."


	5. Phoebe's first pregnancy

**Phoebe's first pregnancy  
**

"This wasn't supposed to happen this way."

Phoebe stands on the balcony, overlooking the sparkling lights of the city and the dark steady water of the Bay, and folds her arms across her stomach. She speaks out loud, not under her breath, but neither does she project enough for her husband to hear her from just inside where he paces across the living room, phone pressed against his ear as he demands something from someone.

She says it again, to the cool San Francisco night air, as if her words could carry out across the city, settle onto the place she's called home, still calls home when she slips and forgets that this is now where she lives. Twice already, she's left her office and gotten halfway to the Manor, before remembering the penthouse was in the opposite direction.

Cole's voice grows louder, and she closes her eyes, listening to not the words, only the inflections of his accent, strange cadences that have become so familiar, so loved. She wonders if the baby will sound like him, too – she already imagines he'll look like Cole. He's a he to her already – nevermind that the Halliwells have always had girls, and on the rare occasions that there were boys in the family, they always came later, never first.

The truth is, from the day they've met, Cole has overpowered her, body, mind, and soul, and this baby she carries may as well be entirely his, and she's just a glorified incubator.

She laughs at her own thoughts, a short, bitter laugh, and she's considering giving herself a lecture right now, but the type of talking-to she'd need would only come in Prue's voice, and she can't quite reconcile the thought of her oldest sister defending Cole.

She's the baby of the family – or at least she was for most of her life. She's not supposed to be pregnant first. If it wasn't Prue, it should have been Piper – married a year already, and wanting this more than anything. Phoebe had to be talked into getting engaged, and it's funny, but she thinks now a tiny part of the curse that attached itself to her through gram's engagement ring lingered inside her, seeped into her bloodstream and made her willingly follow Cole out of the Manor, away from her sisters, slowly destroying her capability of making choices, until all she becomes is a part of him. An appendage.

It's all her sister's fault.

Before Piper and Leo, Phoebe was perfectly content with the types of relationships she'd always pursued: heavy on the sex, light on the emotional attachment. It worked for her; she liked men, no, she loved men, and she was content to date as many as she could. Her sisters were the ones who craved attachments, and Phoebe never really saw the benefit. She never wanted to suffer the way Prue did when she lost Andy. And as far as she was concerned, Dan's entire appeal was the convenience of a hot guy right next door.

But Piper and Leo? Phoebe can name the exact moment her feelings about relationships changed: she was in the middle of finals, and was pulling another all-nighter in her bedroom, her headphones clamped tight to her ears so the sounds of her sisters wouldn't distract her from her work. She left her room to go grab another soda from the fridge in an attempt to keep herself awake, and as she bounced down the staircase, lost in her own thoughts, she caught sight of her sister and Leo standing in the living room, locked in a kiss.

It was the type of kiss that said, _I don't care how wrong this is, or what the consequences are, I'm going to love you anyway_, and Phoebe had become an expert at not-so-accidentally walking in on her older sisters during more private moments than this, but something about the intensity of their embrace made her turn and run back up the stairs.

She wanted that. For the first time in her life, she wanted someone who'd love her so deeply, nothing else could possibly matter. Phoebe believes that it's not at all a coincidence she met Cole so shortly after she decided to open herself to the possibility of a great love. And Cole is that – her great love. So many obstacles, so many heart-rendering difficulties they'd had to overcome to get to this point. Together, they'd been through hell and back, and it was a hundred times harder than Phoebe had ever imagined, but now, they are safe from evil, living here in their own place, away from the distorting influences of magic, and the rings on her finger shine brightly, a promise of all that is ahead of them.

Then why isn't she happy?

She pretends it's because she wanted to be a wife for awhile, wanted it to be just the two of them, and she still feels too young to be a mom just yet, she's not prepared to protect a child from all the things it will need protecting against, but it's not just that. It's something else, nagging at the corners of her thoughts, something she can't identify, can't use her premonitions to explain. That's why she's out here, the cold air pressing against the flimsy silk of her nightclothes, and not inside where it's warm, with her husband, who will explode with happiness the minute she tells him about the baby.

Behind her, Cole has stopped pacing, and it sounds like he's hung up the phone. Maybe he's done working for the night, maybe they can finally get some sleep together. He's been so busy with his new job, it feels like she's barely spent any time with him at all.

"This wasn't supposed to happen this way."

She says it again, her voice an echo in the cool night sky, but this time, she receives a reply.

"I know, honey. But you have to promise me you'll be strong. You have to be strong."

She closes her eyes and rests her head against the thick white cement that keeps them so safe. Logically, she knows the voice is coming from inside her head, but it sounds so real, like someone standing beside her.

"I will, Prue," she says to her sister. "I promise. Just please, tell me we're going to be OK."

She waits and she waits and she waits, but there is no answer. There's never an answer when she wants one the most.


	6. Henry, Jr

**Henry, Jr.**

The phone call came two years ago July, an unfamiliar number but a local exchange scrolling across the surface of her cell phone. She was in a café where she often stopped for her morning coffee, the newspaper spread out in front of her as she circled ads for bigger apartments than the cramped one that was still little more than a glorified bachelor pad. Henry's place reminded her of the studio she'd abandoned to move in with her sisters, and now that they were married and quickly approaching their thirties, it was time to find a slightly bigger, slightly more respectable space. One with actual bedrooms. And maybe a bathroom for each of them.

But San Francisco was an expensive city, and there were not a lot of options in their price range. It'd become clear that they couldn't survive on one salary, and Paige mulled over accepting the part-time position she was offered at Henry's station, though she still toyed with her original plan, which was to browbeat the Elders into paying her a salary for the time she spent guiding future witches and whitelighters. If Leo could ask for – and be granted – paternity leave, she figured she had a shot.

The phone distracted her from these oh-so-intriguing considerations, and she puzzled over the unknown digits for one, two, three rings before picking up.

"Paige? Is that still you?"

The smile broke over her face at the instant familiarity of the voice she hadn't heard for years came through.

"Of course it's me! Glenn! How are you?"

"Well, surprised to know you're alive."

"Oh, yeah. I tried to call you, but your number had been disconnected."

"I'm just teasing you. I read about the whole Homeland Security thing on the internet – my parents told me about it, actually, and I figured it was some kind of cover for something witchy. I came back from Mumbai for your funeral, by the way. Did you know that?"

"I did. And I'm sorry about that – I'd reimburse you for your plane ticket, but I'm kind of broke right now."

"No, don't be silly. And we're broke, too. Mainly, because we just sunk all our money into a house."

"Where? Wait, let me guess. Kenya? No, wait. Too hot. Slovakia? Eh, probably too many tourists. Thailand?"

"Oakland."

"What?!"

"Yeah. Jessica and I decided that it was time to put down some roots. Look, we'd love to invite you over to dinner, but we don't really have a kitchen yet. What do you feel about takeout on our living room floor?"

"Love it. Do you mind if I bring a date?"

"Are you seeing someone?'

Paige felt the smile drift involuntarily across her face. "You can say that. Glenn, I got married."

"No way! Paige, that's awesome. Congratulations. I can't wait to meet him."

The dinner – shifted by mutual agreement to a funky bar in the Embarcadero – was a smashing success. Glenn and Henry hit it off immediately. Jess was very polite, more so than Paige had any right to expect, and in return, Paige made an effort to be as kind to her as possible. Perhaps it was having Henry there, perhaps it was the four glasses of wine Jess drank, but by the end of the night, the awkwardness left over from their initial interactions had all but disappeared.

The four of them became fast friends, falling into the habit of meeting up two or three times a week. Paige loved having sisters, but she didn't grow up with them, and sometimes, all she wanted was to talk to someone who knew her before. Glenn had always been there, and now he was, again, and she could see him clearly now, really, really clearly: with Henry in her life, it was easy to tell where Glenn fit. He'd always been like a brother to her, and at times in the past, before she knew what this kind of love she had with Henry really was, she allowed herself to forget that.

Paige and Henry put off moving until she became pregnant with the twins, and, frustrated with the San Francisco real estate market, they bought a house two blocks away from Jess and Glenn's, a cute ranch with four little bedrooms and a garden for Paige to grow her own herbs. When the twins were born, her sisters were so busy struggling with their own families to be much of a help, but Jessica was there every day, holding one twin while Paige fed the other, helping with diapers, with the laundry, with the hundred new things Paige and Henry couldn't get the hang of by themselves.

Their lives changed, but Glenn and Jess adjusted along with them, and instead of going out, the four of them often stay in, ordering takeout because none of them are particularly good at cooking, while the girls sleep in their cribs or in the playpen Glenn and Jess had set up in their back bedroom. It's during one of these nights, in Paige and Henry's living room, the four of them picking through the remnants of their Vietnamese cardboard boxes, that Jessica reaches across the coffee table, grabs Paige's hands, and squeals, "I'm pregnant!"

"Me, too!" Paige exclaims back without thinking.

Henry shoots her a surprised look; they just found out the week before, and agreed not to tell anyone yet, not until they were through her first trimester. Not even her sisters. But it seemed exactly the right time to say it out loud.

The rest of the night is lost to all other topics of conversation; Henry takes Glenn on a baby-proofing tour of the house, while Paige and Jessica swap stories about sore breasts and swollen ankles and shoes not fitting right.

"What do you want?" Paige says.

"We don't care, as long as the baby's healthy," Jessica says automatically.

"Oh, come on. You don't have to say that to me." Paige rolls her eyes, then whispers, "I want a boy."

Jess giggles. "A boy would be nice. Then you can lend me all the adorable pink dresses the twins have grown out of, because I want a girl."

"Sounds like a plan. And they can grow up together, and go to school together, and your daughter can boss my son around."

"You think she'll be bossy?"

"I think she'll learn from my twins. I know they'll be bossy big sisters – look at how they order the four of us around, and they can't even talk yet!"

Jess lets out a laugh, and the sound fills the room as the two women sit back on the couch and think of the future. Paige can already imagine what it'll be like to hold her son. They've had so many girls in the family recently, four of them in just over a year, and Paige is convinced it's time for a boy again.

It's hard to believe it's been so long since Wyatt and Chris were the only babies, when the next generation of Halliwells were just boys, when they all lived in the Manor together and there were so much fewer of them, just Paige and Phoebe and Piper and Leo and Wyatt and Chris. Now, they have more than doubled in size, with husbands and babies and Victor, even, being a grandfather to everyone, including her twins. Which was good, because Paige and Henry were short on grandparents: they had Glenn's parents, who'd known Paige since she was in kindergarten and were fine surrogates, and Victor, who was so good with babies, and so kind to the girls. Sam, their actual grandfather, is more complicated. He keeps his distance, as he always has, and in a lot of ways, Paige can understand why. Immortality and family don't mix very well. A few times, she's sensed him nearby, and she knows he orbed into the house one night and watched the girls as they slept.

Family is such a strange thing: for so long, she had no one. Henry had no one. Now, they are surrounded by people who they consider their own. Later that night after Jess and Glenn have gone home, when she's cleaning up the plates from dinner and Henry's walking Lilly around the living room, crooning to her so she won't wake up Grace, Paige stops in front of the sink and turns to watch her husband.

Babies look like babies to Paige; she's never been able to see it when other people pointed out familial resemblances. No matter how many times Piper insisted Wyatt was a miniature Leo, he always looked like Wyatt. Everyone said it'd be different when she had her own children, but so far, she still doesn't see anyone else when she gazes at the girls – which she does all the time – except each other, maybe.

But now, watching the way Henry cuddles Lilly in his arms, rocking her in that desperate way of his, there is no way the two of them could be anything but father and daughter. Her hands drift down to her stomach, which is ridiculous, the baby inside her is barely six weeks along, there's no way she can feel him yet, but she does.

"It's your turn," she says, joining Henry in the living room.

"You mean with the dishes?" He looks up from Lilly's entranced face.

"No, with the names." He gives her a puzzled look and she reaches out, taking Lilly from his arms. "I've got Wyatt, Piper's got Ciera, Leo's got Wyatt, too, and now it's your turn to have someone named for you."

"Paige, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about our son. I want a junior. Another Henry."

"Really?" He sinks onto the couch, and Paige settles in beside him, her head on his chest as she holds their daughter on her shoulder. "Are you sure? Henry's kind of a tough name to carry around for a little guy. It's a bit old fashioned."

"Hey, I know tough names. I spent my grade school years being called Book." Paige grimaces at the memory. "And I think Henry is a wonderful name. In fact, it's my very favorite in all the world."

"So you think boy?" His fingers touch against her hair as they talk, pushing strands off her forehead and caressing her softly, absently, as if he doesn't even know he's doing it.

"I think boy."

"You know, I don't even know where Henry came from. You Halliwells have that whole family tree, centuries of names. Charlotte and Melinda and Prudence all came from hundreds of years ago, written all nice on that piece of parchment, even three of the names our girls have, Patricia and Penelope and Grace, are on that tree."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if we do have a son, we should consider giving him a family name, something he can be proud of."

Paige leans back deeper into Henry's chest, a smile playing across her face. The house has grown silent, the hum of the baby monitor and the nighttime sounds of their neighborhood and her husband's breathing are all she hears – just background noise, really. Even Lilly has stopped fussing: Paige looks down at her daughter, who has fallen back asleep in her arms, and quietly laughs.

"What?" Henry says, his arm snaking around her to stroke Lilly's head as she sleeps.

"You're so silly. Henry is a family name. Our family."


	7. Piper

_**A/N:** Thanks again for the reviews! **chuffy-barmed-oc ** (love the name, by the way), the distance thing between Paige & her sisters is intentional, particularly with Paige & Phoebe, though I did have a Henry/Leo bonding scene that I took out because the Henry Jr. one was getting rather lo-ong and unfocused. More about this will come forward later -- in fact, I'm in the process of writing a Coop/Paige scene that explains it a bit more. I also wanted to write about each one of the girls separate from her sisters (and, unfortunately for me, Paige only had two pregnancies). Anyway, you will see all three sisters together, I promise! _

**Piper**

"So this is what it's going to be like," Patty says to herself. In front of her, the demon is frozen in time, his sharp, menacing claw still pointed in her direction. Her powers have been out of whack recently, her aim off, her results unexpected. There's a gash in her thigh that's starting to bleed; she feels the wetness seep through her pants and down her leg, but she can't worry about that now.

Now, it's all about the vanquish.

She unfolds a piece of paper from her pocket, and chants the simple rhyme at the frozen form in front of her. It's a Power of Three spell, copied from the Book this morning, and it shouldn't work, but she tries it anyway, just in case the power of one and a half witches is enough.

It isn't.

The demon stays frozen in front of her, rather ridiculously, to be honest. Patty shrugs, and tries something else. She whips her hands out, but she misses, and the streetlight behind him shatters across the narrow street.

"Eh. Third time's a charm," she says as he breaks through the freeze. Before he can attack, she's flung a potion bottle at his feet, or rather, the things that could be feet, and he explodes into a million black dots.

"Sam!" Patty hollers, smiling in satisfaction. She has a new whitelighter now, and she's not sure why – they are rarely a chatty bunch, and particularly tight-lipped about what they do when they aren't preoccupied with the healing and the guiding. She doesn't know if her last whitelighter is dead, or if whitelighters can even die, or very much about this new one at all. In six months, she's learned almost nothing about Sam, other than that he is soft-spoken, and careful, and he has the kindest eyes.

"Patty! Are you alright?"

"It looks worse than it is," she tells him, as he sinks to the ground in front of her and immediately raises his hands above her leg. Almost instantly, the pain vanishes in a flash of white light, and all but the memory of her injury disappears.

"Thanks," she says, inspecting her leg for even the slightest trace of blood, but finding nothing mars the orange material. "I love these pants."

"That's the third time in a week," Sam comments. "Are you sure you're OK? Do you want me to check on unusual demon activity for you?"

"The amount of activity isn't unusual. It's the number of times I've had to call you."

"Is it your powers? Is there something wrong with them?" His voice is quiet and full of concern, and Patty can see exactly why he's good at his job.

"No, it's not that. It's -- " She says, and then hesitates. She doesn't know why she hasn't told him that she's pregnant. She should. It's one of those things he should know about her. It seems like essential knowledge for him to possess. She's mentioned Prue and Victor, or at least she's pretty sure she has. And she wears her engagement and wedding rings on her left finger, so he must know she's married, even if she's never expressly mentioned it.

But on the other hand, shouldn't he know already? Shouldn't he sense the witch inside her, or at the very least, be attuned to her thoughts and feelings, which border almost obsessively on motherhood? _She _shouldn't have to tell _him _anything. It's not like he's open about what he does or where his powers come from.

"What is it? Are you hurt?" He places his hand on her shoulder, just the slightest, most comforting touch, but Patty jumps like she's been burned. He looks at her, puzzled, with those gentle blue eyes, and she can't figure out exactly what the emotion is that fills her in response.

Inside her, the baby shifts, this tiny little creature who is already such a presence in Patty's life. Prue favors Victor; she cries all day until her daddy comes home, and then she's all giggles and light, and he's totally wrapped around her chubby finger. This daughter will be hers. She'll save her best smiles for Patty, will tell her all her secrets.

"Patty."

She looks up to see Sam's gaze trained intently on her. He's studying her with such concern, and now, looking at him closely, she sees there's something different about him. There's a darkness to his eyes, a stubble growing across his usually clean cut cheeks. Funny. She wouldn't have thought that whitelighters needed to shave.

"Are you alright?" She asks him. "You seem – different."

She moves to sit on a metal box on the far end of the alley, and she reaches out her arm. He takes her hand gently, and this time, she forces herself to withstand the shock of his skin against hers.

"I lost someone this week," he says, looking away. "She was younger than you. I couldn't get to her in time – she – I shouldn't be telling you this."

"No," Patty says softly. "It's OK. It helps to talk about these things."

"She was new to the craft – not raised with it like you, and she was just starting to get the hang of her powers. She had the ability to harness the elements. Heat, water, wind: right now, it was all small doses, but you can imagine the potential. It made her a target for warlocks, and it was probably inevitable, but still. I thought I could help her. I thought, if she could just get through the first few months, the first few years, she'd be fine. Better than fine. She had the potential to do a lot of good, and now? She never will."

"You can't think of it that way," Patty says, impulsively squeezing his arm. She wonders if the heat is some sort of leftover energy from the witch he lost, if something of each of them he guides and protects lingers on his skin. "Some things are meant to be, including the tragic ones."

"Says the woman with great powers and her whole life ahead of her, including two daughters with their own incredible gifts."

"You know," Patty says, unable to keep the joy out of her voice.

"I do," he replies, smiling at her. "And I already know she's going to be a brave and powerful witch, just like her mother."

"Can you see the future?" Her own mother had never mentioned this. But then again, Penny didn't have much use for whitelighters.

"No," Sam laughs, and Patty thinks it's the first time she's heard that noise come from him. She likes it: it reminds her, suddenly, of Prue, her sweet daughter with her childish giggles. "It's just a feeling. But a strong one."

"I should get going." Patty stands up, thinking of her daughter waiting at home. Knowing Prue, she'll still be wide awake. "Thanks for my pants."

"Anytime."

He disappears as suddenly as he arrived, in a flash of blue lights, and the alley is so much colder, so much more empty in his absence. Patty wraps her arms around her body, as if she's hugging herself, and instead of leaving right away, she lingers for a moment.

"We did good today, baby," she whispers, and, almost as if she's following an unheard command, as she turns to leave she tosses a hand behind her, and blows out one more light.


	8. Wyatt

_**A/N**: Had some problems with this one, which is a bit of a shocker, because I love writing Piper and Leo so much, I managed to slip them into not only Phoebe's sections, but even one of Patty's. Part of my problem is that the show focused so much on Piper's first pregnancy, that there was little left to say. So I started by setting this after my favorite stand-alone episode of the series (Sand Francisco Dreamin'), and from there got a new idea about point of view that will hopefully freshen up the next two or three chapters. I'm still not entirely sure about this one -- it may be be rewritten, or replaced.  
_

**Wyatt**

Leo backs Piper's Jeep into the alley behind the club. He sighs as he notices that the space clearly marked "owner" is occupied by an unfamiliar sports car, hesitates for a moment, then leaves the Jeep in an illegal spot between the Jag and the door, hastily scrawling a quick note on the off chance the tow truck arrives while he's inside P3.

Inside, the club is dark and populated, but not overly so. There was an early show tonight, and some fans still linger; in about an hour or so, the late night crowd will start to arrive. Leo hopes they're out of there before that happens.

"Leo, right?" An unfamiliar blonde greets him at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm Wendy. We spoke earlier on the phone?"

"Right. Nice to meet you."

"It's so funny. I've been friends with Piper since the third grade, and this is the first time I'm meeting her husband."

Leo flashes her an uncomfortable smile. He's never sure what to say around Piper's friends, never clear on what stories she may have told them, what cover his wife has created to explain his presence in this world. Usually he's a doctor, but not always.

"Anyway, the girls are back this way. They're still asleep. It's the darnedest thing."

"They haven't been sleeping well recently. They've all been working a lot, and her pregnancy keeps Piper up, which keeps … all of us up." Leo's aware of how lame it sounds, but fortunately, Wendy just keeps on walking.

He follows her to the back of the club, to the private area separated from the main room by curtains, which has been strewn with a small but still effective percentage of the pink and white decorations that Paige had filled their living room with. In the middle of it, Piper and her two sisters are sound asleep on the couch, their faces peaceful and their mouths all twisted in the exact same half-smiles.

"I know," Wendy whispers. "They look like – angels or something. I couldn't wake them."

She gestures to the boxes, where she packed up Piper's gifts. Leo brings them out the car, while Wendy and other women from the shower move the food to the P3 kitchen for the staff to wrap up and store until tomorrow. Leo starts gathering up the decorations, and as he returns to the club after his last trip to the Jeep, Paige and Phoebe come bounding up the stairs and practically collide with him.

"Hey Leo!" They call. "You missed quite a party."

"Nice of you to sleep through cleanup," he says. "Perfect timing."

"We'll see you tomorrow," Paige grins. "Now that we are nice and refreshed from our nap, we're going out." She takes Phoebe's arm, and the two disappear into the night.

Leo can't help but smile at the retreating backs of his sisters-in-law; he turns away from them and runs right into Wendy, who, after checking that he's got everything and doesn't need her help, also says goodnight.

Piper is still asleep on the couch, and Leo sits quietly beside her. He feels like he could watch her like this forever. But then he remembers the illegally parked Jeep, and he raises his hand to her cheek.

"Honey," he says. "Wake up."

Her eyes drift open slowly, and her mouth moves into a smile. "I was dreaming about you," she says groggily, blinking in the dim light of the club.

"Did I look like a soap opera actor?"

"No, you looked like you." She leans over to brush her lips against his.

"Did you have a good time tonight?" He asks, then kisses her gently again.

"I did. And when we get home, it's going to look like Babies R Us threw up all over the Manor."

"Nice imagery."

"You will not believe how much pink we now own."

"What I can't believe is how full the Jeep is," he says. "Are you ready to go?"

She looks around, sitting up. "Where is everyone? Don't I have to say goodbye?"

"They all left already. Even your sisters."

"Oh." She blinks again, and holds out her arms to be helped up. "I guess there's nothing left to do but go home."

In the car, she rests her head on his shoulder as he drives, and he glances down at her every so often at her, so comfortable beside him. He still can't believe he's living this life: caught between two worlds, but the only one that matters is the one with her. There are choices looming in his future, choices he's going to have to make soon, because what good is immortality if your world grows old and dies? His impending fatherhood has pushed this decision to the front of his mind, though he keeps it locked inside, away from her. She's got enough to worry about right now.

"Leave it," she says after they've pulled into the driveway and he's made a move toward the back of the Jeep, where all her presents are stacked together. "We'll get them in the morning. Or rather, we'll make Paige and Phoebe get them in the morning."

He follows her laugh up the front path, and into the darkened manor. The house is unusually quiet, particularly after the afternoon's excitement. He can't remember the last time they had the manor to themselves, without her sisters, without demons attacking.

"You want some tea before you go to sleep?" He asks.

"Actually," she says, turning to him with that smile he knows so well, "I'm not really tired anymore."

The day comes flooding back to him in detail, how it felt to be betrayed by her, if only in her dreams, and then the relief when he learned that she only wanted him. He'd been so focused on how the baby would change his destiny, change her destiny, he hadn't paid attention to what his focus had done to their marriage.

And once again, he screwed up.

Before he met her, he was so good at being confident. He knew he could help people, he knew that he brought calm and comfort and guidance to the people who were meant to do good in the world, and that was enough. After Piper, though, it was never enough, and he now he has everything. Mortal life, immortal destiny. And it's too much: he's starting to slip. There are days now when he believes the only thing in the world he's any good at is loving her, and there are days, like today, when he can't even do that right.

He knows he has to fix it. She has the courage to face her fears, to tell him what she wanted: not just his love, but his passion. Now he's the one who has to take the step closer to her, to reach out to his wife and let her know the truth, that to him, she's grown even more beautiful every day.

"If you're awake, I'm awake," he says, taking her in his arms. She smiles up at him, almost shy, and it reminds him so much of when they first met, when she didn't even realize the world of hell she was opening herself up to, and he was too stupid, too selfish to keep her safe from it.

He can't think that way. Not now, especially, not when he's kissing her perfect mouth.

"Let's go upstairs," she murmurs, her mouth still pressed against his.

"How about I run you a nice warm bath?" He whispers, still desperate to shut off his brain.

As he runs the water, he does everything he can to keep his hands busy – lights candles borrowed from Phoebe's bedroom, measures out the right amount of bath oils, even strews rose petals around the tub – in hopes that it'll stop him from thinking so much.

"Smells good in here." He turns to see his wife in the doorway, and the image that greets him – her hair down around her shoulders, her body draped in a short, sexy black negligee with pink piping – is almost enough to wipe his thoughts clean permanently.

She laughs at his reaction. "It's from Paige – only my youngest sister would think that lingerie would make the perfect baby shower gift."

"I will gladly write that thank you note."

He lets her undress him, and he can't stop his body from responding to her touch. He's always been this way, completely useless against her hands on his skin. He slides the smooth silk off her body, and then steps into the tub. He holds his arms out to her, then carefully lowers her downward so she's resting between his legs, her back pressed against his chest.

"This is perfect," she says, leaning into him. "I actually feel warm."

He wraps his arms around her, his hands caressing her stomach. He's promised himself that he won't mention the baby tonight, not even once, so he can keep his focus entirely on Piper, but he can't help but wonder how she's doing in there, if she can feel the water, if she knows how much he thinks about her. He loves this baby so much already, he's willing to do anything in the world, including forego the one thing he wants the most, in order to keep her and her mother safe.

He will remain Piper's whitelighter. He's no good to her as a mortal, not now, when there's so much she and her sisters and their child need protecting against.


	9. Phoebe's second daughter

**(Phoebe and Coop's Second Daughter)**

"One daughter. I saw one daughter!"

"Honey, it's OK. Just breathe. Remember what we talked about? Remember what we practiced?"

"Coop, I swear, if you tell me to breathe one more time, I'm going to kick you in places you won't soon recover from."

Phoebe grits her teeth and moves as far away as she can from her husband. Which is not that far: they are in the back of a cab, racing through the streets of San Francisco at two in the morning, and as much as she'd like an entire continent to be between them right now, her husband's tall frame shoved into the tiny backseat, added to the fact that she's currently the size of a horse, means he keeps brushing up against her, even though she's already barked at him twice to stop.

"Great. This could not get any worse," Phoebe says. "What's next? A Kazi demon? Or maybe a Grimlock will attack us."

"Phoebe! Shh!" He says, motioning to the cab driver.

"Don't 'Phoebe' me. I'm about to give birth for the second time in a year, and I'm not really loving it right now. I'm kind of thinking I should have smacked the Avatars and their premonitions, and now I'm wondering how we ever believed they could change the entire world in the first place if they couldn't even count to two. And you. With your charm, and your sexy eyes, and your magical super sperm that knocks me up whenever you're within a mile of my uterus!"

The panic that's been slowly building all day – no, not just all day, for months, really, ever since right after Ciera's birth, when both Coop and Phoebe realized they had not the slightest clue as to how to raise a child – begins to fill his throat.

"Please say we're almost there," Coop pleads with the cab driver as Phoebe rants some more.

In all his years as a Cupid, he thought he knew love. He thought the hard part was getting two people together, and once his job was done, the rest would be easy. The last two years have proven to him that he was wrong, dead wrong. He had no idea what the realities of day to day love were like, no concept of how to handle a problem that couldn't be solved with Phoebe's favorite orchids or a box of Godiva chocolates.

His daughter's cries grow louder, and he murmurs to her. He'd never known this type of love before until the first time he looked into Ciera's big brown eyes and realized he'd abandon his pacifistic tendencies in a heartbeat if anyone tried to harm her.

But she is so needy. And she cries all the time, sometimes for no reason, and there's no calming her, no matter how hard they both try.

Sometimes they make it all the way to OK. Sometimes, like tonight, it felt like the fates are conspiring against them, to throw every last obstacle in their way. "You wanted a magical marriage? You wanted to experience the type of love you've brought other people? Well, here you go – enjoy!"

The cab comes to a sudden stop, and Coop struggles to help both Phoebe and Ciera from the back seat before fumbling to pay the cab fare. He gets them through the hospital and into the right place without any further hassles, beyond the looks of frustration at Ciera's cries.

"Sir, that baby really should not be in here," a woman dressed in scrubs tells Coop.

"I know," he says miserably.

"I got her." He looks up from the doorway to see Victor, his eyes still bleary with sleep and his shirt untucked, holding out his arms for his granddaughter. "I just got your message. Coop, you should have kept calling. Where are the girls? How's Phoebe?"

"I'm fine, daddy," Phoebe called from the other side of the room, her voice suddenly sweet and measured.

"And her sisters?" Victor says again to Coop.

"I didn't want to disturb them." He feels so helpless, and not at all like a responsible husband, a father. When Phoebe's water broke, he hesitated to call Piper or Paige, both of them home with young babies of their own.

"Coop, that's ridiculous." Victor looks down as Ciera starts to mewl again. "I'm going to take her outside. Call me if you need me."

With Ciera out of his arms, Coop feels ready to devote himself fully to Phoebe. But now that her father's left the room, her smile fades and she's back with the scowl she's been favoring him with all night.

"Can I get you anything, sweetie?" He says.

"Yeah. You can use that ring of yours to go back in time and keep me from getting knocked up."

"Honey, hang in there. All you need to do is get through this, and we're going to have the most beautiful baby girl. It'll all be worth it."

"Easy for you to say."

Coop sighs, feeling even more helpless. There's nothing he can do or say that will make this right, and it's a feeling that's grown way too familiar over the last few months.

"I'm going to get you some ice chips," he says, standing up. Part of him hopes she'll ask him to stay with her, but she just nods, and looks away.

Once in the hallway, he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the cool wall. He can picture the way he wants his life to be like: full of sweetness and joy, two adorable, well-behaved little girls, Phoebe, happy and carefree and loving him so passionately in that way of hers. He never thought he'd come home from a long day of matchmaking to a stressed out wife on deadline and a screaming baby who needed constant attention. He never thought he'd need protection spells cast through his house on the chance that the demons from his wife's past would come back.

"Hey, daddy. You don't look so good."

Coop's eyes snap open at the familiar voice. "Paige? What are you doing here?"

"Victor called me."

"But – isn't Henry working nights this month?"

Paige smirks. "Yeah, so Jess is watching the girls. Coop, I can't believe you didn't call us."

He shrugs. "I didn't want to disturb you. I know you and Piper are busy."

Paige rolls her eyes, and slaps him on the arm. "Yeah, but we're her sisters. Of course we want to be here. Where's Ciera?"

"She's with Victor."

"OK, good. When he gets back, I'll orb her to Piper's, and Leo can stay with the kids."

"Paige, it's too much."

She squints her eyes at him, then hooks her arm through his. "Let's walk," she says in her most determined voice. She's like Phoebe in that way: stubborn, and she knows what she wants, knows how to make everyone around her bend to her will. He grins, thinking about how many Halliwell women he can be describing with that statement, including the tiniest ones.

Paige leads him through the hospital, and they walk together without speaking. They end up in a long coffee shop, and Paige buys him a cup of watery hot chocolate.

"You," she says, sitting him down, "are going to have to stop doing this."

"Doing what?" He says, playing the edges of the styrofoam cup.

"Stop avoiding us. Piper and I are frankly sick of it."

"We're not avoiding you." It's just that every time Coop and Phoebe see Paige and Henry, they seem so capable, so relaxed, and that's with twice as many babies. Piper and Leo aren't any better; the manor is always controlled chaos, but the emphasis is on "controlled." And besides, the way they look at each other, how they always stand so close together – sometimes, it's too much for Coop.

"I know Phoebe's been going through a tough time," Paige says quietly.

"She told you about it?"

"Not in so many words. She's postpartum, right?"

Coop nods. "She didn't want to tell anyone. First, she didn't want you guys to think she couldn't handle being a mom, what with you and Piper having had it so much harder, but still dealing with it all so much better."

"That's ridiculous," Paige says.

"That's Phoebe," Coop corrects. He's so tired of keeping it all in, he doesn't care what he says anymore. "Anyway, she can't take the medication because of her pregnancy."

"And I bet she won't see a therapist," Paige adds.

"How did you know? It's so silly – she recommends them to her readers every day, but she refuses to let anyone help her. I –I don't know what we'll do with two girls, Paige."

"You'll get through it," she says quietly. "It will be tough, but Phoebe's a fighter. She'll be OK. And she'll have us. All of us. And in the meantime, Coop, you need to talk to someone, too."

"Like professionally?"

"I was thinking more like your brothers in law. Henry has become an expert at this being married to a witch stuff, and he'll give you all his secrets. And Leo lived with your wife for almost eight years – if there's anyone who knows about how to deal with Halliwell women at their most prickly, it's Leo."

"But I don't want to impose."

"Would you stop it? We're your family now. Henry and Leo take the kids every Saturday to that park near the Manor for that dad's day thing – I know they've invited you. Why have you never tagged along?"

Coop shrugs. "I didn't think they meant it."

Paige rolls her eyes. "OK, now the first thing you have to do is stop doing is that. Coop, it's hard. It's hell. I haven't slept a full night's sleep in months – one twin goes down, and the other one's suddenly wide awake. But it's worth it. In a few hours, you are going to have two beautiful daughters, and for their sake, you've got reach out to us. We'll all try harder, but you've got to try, too."

He nods, looking up from his cocoa.

"OK. Good enough. Now, before I find my lovely niece, I'm going to check on Phoebe. You want to come with me?"

"No, I'll just stay here."

He sits by himself, and plays with his coffee cup. He knows Paige is right, but he's always been so capable, so much the fixer, it's hard for him to turn to someone else for help. He thinks about all Phoebe has gone through, all the anger and the sadness and the helplessness, and he realizes that she's scared, too. He and his wife are so very similar, and he's always known this, but for some reason, he allowed himself to forget it the minute things got difficult.

He stands up from his chair, and walks as quickly as he can through the hospital hallways, back to Phoebe's room. He stands in the doorway, unseen, and watches Paige sitting on the edge of his wife's bed. The two women have their heads close together, and Paige has Phoebe's hands clutched in her own.

"They need each other," a voice says behind him, and Coop turns to find his father in law has joined him. "It's more than just a sister thing. Even without the demon attacks, the three of them aren't right without the others. And it's your job to remind Phoebe of that."

"How'd you do that?" Coop gestures to Ciera, asleep in his arms.

"Magic," Victor grins. "So do you have my next granddaughter's name picked out yet?"

"Yeah," Coop says back. "Charlotte Paige."

"Another 'C,'" Victor says. "In this family, it's like 'C' is the new 'P.' Is it from the family tree?"

"Yeah. I think."

"I remember Patty, scouring that parchment for names. Not with Phoebe, though. She's named for my wife's favorite aunt, did you know that?"

"Maybe."

"Hi, Victor." Paige is now beside them in the hallway, and she lays her hand gently on Ciera's head. "It looks like it's going to be a few hours before anything happens with Pheebs, so I'm going to take this little one to her Auntie Piper's house; wanna come, maybe catch a quick nap on the couch?"

"Sure. Coop, you'll call us if anything changes?"

"I will."

"Promise," Paige says. "And you'll keep calling until we answer, OK?"

Coop watches his wife's family – his family – disappear down the hallway, then turns back to Phoebe, alone in the hospital bed.

"Hey," he says, sitting down beside her, and taking her hand.

"Hey," she says back, not as angry as she was earlier, but her voice is not exactly warm, either.

There's so much he has to tell her, so much he has to talk to her about. How it'll be different, how he'll be different. How they'll get through this better than they did last time, because they know it won't be easy and perfect, and they'll have to work at it. And help is there – all they need to do is ask for it. It will be hard, but they will be fine.

But not now. All he can do now is hold her hand, and tell her it's OK to be scared. She smiles at his words, and her brown eyes find his. "Are you scared, too?" she asks.

"Yeah," he admits. "Terrified. But we're not alone."

"We're not. Paige smacked some sense into me about that – she did the same to you, too, didn't she?"

"You Halliwell women are tough like that," Coop grins. "How's our baby?" He stretches out his empty hand, until it's resting on Phoebe's stomach. This is the last time he'll do this, he thinks, the last time he'll be able to touch his wife and his daughter this way.

"Ready to meet her daddy."

In her eyes, he sees the pain, but he also sees the spark of hope beginning to catch. He holds her hand tight, and for the first time in his life, he begins to realize what it's like to not just feel love, but to live through it.

_**A/N**: Coop for me is the hardest Charmed character to write -- which you may have figured out if you read my story "The Wrong One," in which I cover every other adult point of view at his own damn wedding, but skip his. The show didn't give us much about cupids, and even less about Coop, so I made up a lot more than I usually do. But it was kind of a nice break from the sisters' perspectives, particularly since Phoebe has four pregnancies! Let me know what you think about getting the daddies' points of view.  
_


	10. The Twins

_**A/N**: As I've said before, and always mean even when I forget to say it, I love, love, love my reviews. Thank you all so much for taking the time to give your feedback: it keeps me going. I'm particularly grateful to **disparate**'s detailed and specific comments, which I read over & over, because, yes, I am just that geeky. Anyway, thanks for the reviews, everyone._

**The Twins**

Unknown. Unknown. Unknown.

As Henry sits beside her, Paige continues to check off the boxes, whipping through the several pages stapled together and clamped firmly to the clipboard. Father's family history? Unknown. Mother's family history? That's mostly unknown, too.

Eleven pages, and she's written exactly one thing other than Unknown: half-sister, toxemia/hemorrhaging_._

"So, basically, I can tell you nothing that's going to be any sort of help at all," Paige says, handing the clipboard to the receptionist.

"You don't know any of this? You can't make a phone call?"

Paige sighs, leaning her hip against the desk. "My husband was raised in foster care, and there's no trace of any potential family members. I was given up for adoption at birth, and a few years ago, I found my half-sisters. That's Piper there –" she points to the page "who has had two very difficult deliveries, but now we have two beautiful nephews. Anyway, my birth mother died in 1978, when my sisters were still very young, and didn't exactly leave behind a detailed family medical history. And my birth father --? Uh, let's just say he's unknown. So I think it's safe to say no, there's no one I can call."

The receptionist looks to Henry, who just shrugs his shoulders.

"It's OK," he says to Paige, moments later, as she slumps back down in the waiting room chair. "They're just trying to be helpful. They've got your best interest, the baby's best interest in mind."

"Yeah, but why do I always have to feel like such a freak," she says leaning her head against his chest.

"You're not a freak," he tells her. "You're just – unique."

* * *

Months later, Paige still tells the story in elaborate detail. The questions get longer, more detailed, the receptionist ruder, his wife more pertinent in each telling.

"Oh, Paige. You're being silly," Piper says, not for the first time. "And you weren't exactly truthful with her, either."

"Like I need to hear that right now," Paige says. She's sitting on the couch, in between her two sisters, and they are all slumped back into the pillows with the exact same posture, their feet resting up on the low table Piper had Leo drag across the room for exactly this purpose.

"Piper, don't be so bossy. You're always so bossy," Phoebe says, her hand drifting down to her stomach, which has barely begun to develop a small bump. She looks like one of those pregnant women on TV, the ones who really aren't pregnant, but are wearing a little pad under their stylish tee-shirts. It's a contrast against Piper, now seven months along and fully round, and Paige, at five months and expecting twins.

All three sisters, pregnant at once. Paige's first, Phoebe's second, and Piper's third, all overlapping. Individually, the last few months have been interesting, to say the least. Paige has been absolutely nuts, but that's just one of the hundred thousand things Henry loves about her: the side of her that gets a little crazy.

Taken together, however, the three of them are ridiculous.

Henry stands in the doorway, watching his wife and her sisters, a dish towel still flung over his shoulder. Immediately after dinner, the husbands had been banished to the kitchen for clean-up duty, which was only fair, after Piper cooked one of her elaborate meals. Coop is currently chasing Wyatt and Chris around the backyard, and Leo is pacing the kitchen with Ciera, who screams like bloody murder whenever she's put down. Consequently, family dinners had become a game of pass the baby.

"We need to have some rules around here, people," Piper is saying, waving her arms in that way of hers that always makes Henry flinch a bit. Logically, he knows after ten years of being a witch, his sister in law is in full control over her powers, but Henry's also been a Halliwell long enough to realize there's always a chance of an accidental explosion.

"Here," Leo comes up behind him, and hands him a beer. "It's contraband, not that Piper ever drinks the stuff anyway, but I figured we could use one right about now."

Henry smiles gratefully, and takes a big sip. "This is exactly what I needed."

"Me, too." Leo drinks with his left hand, while Ciera stays perfectly cradled in his right arm.

"How are you doing that?" Henry gestures toward his niece with his beer bottle.

"Practice," Leo grins. "Don't worry – you'll get used to it pretty quick. Especially with two of them."

"I'll take your word. Hey, USC is playing Cal on Thursday night – you want to come over and watch the game?"

"Sure," Leo says. "Did I ever tell you we had a brother in law for about five minutes who played for Cal?"

"Cole played football? I didn't know demons went to college."

"Not Cole. Dex."

"Who's Dex?"

Leo laughs and with a glance back at the girls, walks away from the living room and out of earshot. Their wives aren't listening to them anyway, they're too busy exchanging complaints to pay any attention to them, but Henry follows, sipping his beer as he walks.

"Dex was an artist of some sort. He was husband number two. He met Phoebe when we were all disguised as Bennett cousins and pretending we were dead – you do know about that, don't you?"

"Yeah, the Homeland Security stuff," Henry says. He met Paige right after they had all changed back, fortunately.

"Right. Anyway, Billie cast some sort of spell on Dex and Phoebe, and they eloped, but then the spell wore off, and Dex found out Phoebe wasn't who he thought she was, and it was pretty messy for awhile there, until they had the whole thing annulled."

"I wonder if Coop knows about this Dex guy," Henry says, glancing out the window.

"Yeah, he knows. Apparently, he led Pheebs through her past loves, and he got to experience her greatest hits firsthand."

"Ouch." Henry shudders at the thought of making a similar journey. "So, what is the deal with these cupids, anyway? I know Coop says he had nothing to do with Paige and me getting together, but was he around before?"

"I don't know." Leo shrugs. "Coop insists he wasn't assigned to the girls until he came here for Phoebe, but who knows – maybe he just doesn't want to take the blame for the fireman or the advice columnist or the married guy, to name just a few failures."

"The married guy?" Henry raises his eyebrows, and drains his beer.

"Never mind." Leo's guilty look tells Henry exactly which sister was involved with that one. "You want another?"

"Sure." Henry looks out the window at the cupid, now pushing Wyatt and Chris around the backyard in a red plastic car. "Should we take one out to Coop?"

"Have you ever seen him drink a beer?"

"Nope. I haven't seen him do much of anything. He keep to himself, don't you think?"

"No one's allowed to keep to themselves when Piper's around," Leo smirks. "But I see what you mean. When we've asked him to hang out with us, Coop always says he doesn't like sports."

"Or he's too busy with work. Were you like this, back when you had your magical job?"

"I don't know. None of the non-demonic boyfriends were ever around long enough to get to know. I mean, Paige did date that one guy who tried to kill me, so right away, no male bonding opportunities there."

"I promise I won't repeat that mistake," Henry laughs. "Besides, you're too valuable for me to knock off -- I need you around to show me how to do that." He gestures to Ciera, now sleeping happily on her uncle's shoulder.

"This is nothing. Once the twins come, you'll figure it out pretty quick. You get used to carrying them around while you do everything else. Chris went through this stage when he was about seven months old where he refused to be put down. I'd walk around with him all day, and it got to the point where it didn't feel right not to be holding him."

"Babies are just not my thing." Henry hasn't said this out loud yet; he's excited to have a family, he truly is, and he's looking forward to being a father, but he hasn't wanted to worry Paige with how uncomfortable he is around newborns. Like Ciera. She's so tiny, and he's so big, he's afraid he's going to do something wrong.

"Babies are easy. Wait until they hit two, and they're orbing all over San Francisco."

"I haven't even thought about that," Henry moans. "Paige won't ever be able to leave me alone with them."

"Don't say that. It'll work out – it did for us, and we had demons attacking on pretty much a daily basis. Your girls will be fine, no matter what they can do in terms of magic, and you're going to be a great dad. Wyatt and Chris think you're pretty terrific."

"But they're boys. Boys are easy."

"Really? You think? I'd always thought the opposite. Maybe it's because I've been waiting for our daughter pretty much our entire relationship, and my sons were so unexpected, but I always thought girls were the easy ones."

"Leo!" Piper's voice calls out from the living room. "We need you!"

Henry and Leo exchange looks before rushing to their wives.

"What, what is it?"

"We need ice cream."

Leo rolls his eyes, but turns toward the kitchen. "Here," he says, handing Ciera to Henry. "Get some practice."

Henry holds his breath for a moment as he juggles the sleeping baby and his beer bottle, but he stoops down to put the beer on the floor and manages to find a comfortable position to hold Ciera. She's so soft, and she smells like clean laundry and warm milk, and she makes tiny little noises through her nose as she sleeps.

He's good like this. It takes him a few minutes to realize it, but he's OK. She's secure enough in both his arms that he doesn't feel in danger of dropping her, and she's so light, it's like she's barely even there.

"Don't wake up, baby," he whispers, and then starts to bounce from foot to foot.

"What are you doing?"

Henry looks up, and all three sisters are staring at him with the same looks on their faces. "What?" he says defensively.

"Nothing," Paige says, giggling. "It's just that you look so – so intent."

"I'm just holding my niece."

"And she's loving every moment of it," Phoebe smiles. "I can tell – she's not crying."

"Good work," Piper says. "You can now become a daddy. And good work to you."

This last part is directed at her husband, who has entered the living room with three different containers of ice cream, and three spoons, which he distributes to each of them.

"You still keep my favorite flavor in your freezer," Paige says. "Aw, I'm so touched."

"Of course we do," Piper says. "It's all part of my master plan to lure you here on a weekly basis, even once you pop out those nieces of mine, because I gotta say one thing about those demons. They certainly kept us closer together."

"Yeah, except when Phoebe moved to Hong Kong," Paige says around a spoonful of mint chocolate chip.

"I wasn't there very long, and besides, you kept orbing me back all the time anyway."

"Don't take this the wrong way," Leo says, "but I'm kind of glad you all don't live here anymore."

"What, you don't want three hugely pregnant, hormonally charged women ordering you around all the time? That doesn't sound like fun to you?"

As the conversation drifts around him, Henry focuses his attentions on the baby asleep in his arms. He wonders what his daughters will look like, if they'll be identical to Ciera or if little things will stand out that he'll be able to trace back to his own face, to his wife's. He looks up to find Paige watching him from across the room; she crinkles up her nose at him, and he makes a silly face at her in return.

"Are you OK? Or do you need me to take her back?" Leo asks.

"Nah," Henry says. "I got her."

"You want your beer again?"

"Nope."

One thing at a time. Baby steps.


	11. Prue

**Prudence**

"Patty?"

Victor calls his wife's name as he travels the ground floor of the Victorian he still has a difficult time considering home. The house has been in his wife's family for generations, and he and Patty were newlyweds, struggling to pay their rent, when Patty's mother announced she was moving in with an artist in Sonoma, and she'd like them to occupy the Manor in her absence.

"Is this husband number two, or number three?" He'd asked Patty at the time.

"Victor!" She smacked his arm, and then grinned. "Three, but whose counting? Anyway, she'll probably be back, but for now, please say yes."

He's up to the second floor now, opening doors to seldom used bedrooms, even the sewing room that neither of them have entered since Penny deserted it, her machine set up in the middle of the room, clothes still half-repaired piled on the table beside it. Victor loosens his tie as he climbs the third set of stairs, leading to the attic. Their old apartment may have been small, but at least there he'd never lost his wife.

"There you are." He lets out a sigh of relief as he catches sight of her figure, now round in so many places, bent over a table by the windows.

She's so beautiful right now, the way the light catches the gold in her brown hair, causing her whole face to glow. She has dazzled him from the first moment he laid eyes on her; he can't explain it, but there was something about Patricia Halliwell that instantly bewitched him. Victor Bennett never believed in love at first sight, and would never admit to anyone, not even Patty, that this belief has changed, but it did. He's loved her since the moment he met her, but never more than he does right now, fully expectant with their first child.

"Victor!" She looks up, and he can't identify the expression that crosses quickly across her features. But it soon disappears, and a smile lights up her face. "Come here."

She gestures to him, impatient, but the smile on her face stays big and bright as he finally strides across the attic, taking her hand.

"I missed you today," he tells her, kissing her soundly.

"I know you did," she says, breaking their embrace and leading him toward the table. She's got a thick piece of parchment paper rolled out across the surface, and the four corners are held down by thick glass-like objects that look like crystal paperweights. "You have to see this."

"What is it?" He says, gesturing down. "Something your mother left behind?"

"This," she says, sweeping her hand across the air over the parchment, "is going to tell us the name of our first daughter."

"Ah," Victor says. "The famous Warren family tree."

"Every one of my maternal ancestors is on here, dating all the way back the 1600s. Look, Melinda Warren is our matriarch. I wonder who her mother was?"

"Maybe she's like Athena, springing forth from her father's head, fully formed," Victor teases. "Or was in Aphrodite?"

Patty smacks Victor on the arm. "No, I'm serious. This is a very important task we have, to find exactly the right name. There are a lot of options here, but we need the correct one for our little girl: it could take us days, months even."

"Why are you so convinced we're having a daughter?" Victor asks. "You could have a boy in there."

"Doubtful," Patty shrugs, pointing to the tree. "Look here – first born children are always girls. But honey, if you want, you can pick out a boy's name."

"Milton? Clarence? I hope you're right – let's stick to girls."

Patty crinkles her forehead at the 1800s. "Hm, not that those options are all that much better. Can you imagine us naming our firstborn Astrid?"

"There are some pretty ones," he says, tracing over the carefully inscribed letters. It's so strange, every name on the chart looks as if it has been entered in the same handwriting, even though that's impossible: Patty has told him the parchment is very old, dating back at least a century. "What do you think of Lorelei Bennett?"

Patty opens her mouth as if to speak, but then shuts it quickly. "I was hoping we'd find another good 'P' name on here. It's like a mini-tradition, and it'd be kind of like naming her after me, without actually giving her my name."

A horrible thought crosses Victor's mind. "Please tell me you don't want Penelope."

"Oh, no. Never. My mother would be insufferable."

Victor's eyes scan the centuries, searching the names for the exact right one. Names are so important; this one he'll be saying every day for the rest of his life, and it has to fit perfectly. It needs to be sensible, like he is, but fanciful and smart, like Patty. He lays his finger on the parchment, and he traces the dark ink back, back, touching over names, instantly discarding them until he's almost all the way to the top of the page.

"Prudence," Patty breathes, as his finger comes to a stop.

He looks down at where he paused, where his wife read along, the first line down from Melinda Warren, the only daughter whose great task it was to populate this vast family tree.

"You probably hate it," Patty sighs. "You probably think it's too old fashioned."

Victor is silent, lost in a memory. "No," he finally says. "No, not at all. I was just thinking of the song. How does it go? _The sun is up, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, and so are you_."

His voice fills the attic, and Patty clasps his hand in hers, and moves it to her stomach. "Do you feel that?" She whispers.

He continues the song, the lyrics coming back to him and taking hold of something new. _Dear Prudence._ The more times the name leaves his mouth, the more right it sounds.

It's most likely a coincidence – the baby has been active for weeks, and it's not uncommon for her to move around – but as Victor sings, he can feel their daughter, almost as if she's reacting to his voice, to the song, to the name they've now chosen for her together.

*

_**A/N:** I hate that Family Tree! It's the parchment that launched a thousand continuity errors. But despite all the things the production assistant who wrote it got wrong (and despite the fact that no one bothered to correct and update it between seasons two and five after, oh, Prue's death, Leo and Piper's marriage, Victor's last name, Penny's four husbands, Patty's favorite Aunt Phoebe), I love the idea of it. And I love it when people name their daughters for Beatles' songs, like my parents did. =)_

_And with that, the fathers' points-of-view are done! I've only got two more pregnancies...one is written, and it's my favorite so far. The other hasn't even been started yet, so it may take me a bit longer to update.  
_


	12. Melinda

**Prudence Melinda**

The tests sat piled on a shelf in Piper's bathroom, left over from when Phoebe misread the one that sent them all into a panic, and as a precaution, her sister raced out and purchased several of the type that read, simply, Pregnant, or Not Pregnant.

Phoebe moved out, never using a single one of them, but Piper has. It'd become habitual: once a month, she unwraps another box, reads the instructions carefully as if they'd somehow changed in the last 28 days, follows them exactly, and then waits precisely three minutes, watching the seconds tick by on the old-fashioned clock she'd pounded to the wall for just this purpose.

Fact: She has two beautiful, amazing, exhausting young boys who are the most perfectly unexpected gifts she never could have predicted.

Fact: She has a full life with a time-consuming job, and a new mission to be Super Mom, joining committees, volunteering her time, baking, hosting as many events as she can, striking up new friendships, reviving old ones, doing her best to establish herself in the type of life she'd always wanted to lead, way back before she knew she was a witch.

Fact: She has the most perfect niece in the entire world, a little bitty baby girl named for her, who she can continue to spoil with all the pink dresses and adorable dolls she can get her hands on.

Fact: She has an amazing husband waiting on the other side of this door for her to yell "We're not pregnant, honey," like she has on these mornings for the last six months, and he will hold her in his strong arms, and will love her just as much, even if it always says Not Pregnant, from now until the end of time.

One minute.

Leo. Even though there's only the slightest chance that this month will be different than the ones that came before, he is still there every time she does this, because for once, he's going to find out about her pregnancy before anyone else, and he's going to hear about it from Piper. She always felt a little bad that Phoebe, even Paige, figured out the meaning behind the Angel of Destiny's cryptic words before she did, and Leo had to find out from her shrieking sisters that he was going to be a father for the first time. With Chris – well, with Chris it was a hundred times worse, also from her sisters, but far, far later than necessary, and the fact that he handled it so well, a thousand times better than she would have if their places could somehow have been reversed, is one of the reasons why she was so willing to give their marriage a chance after that.

Two weeks ago, when they'd gone together to the hospital and Leo held their niece for the first time, Ciera all wrapped in a pink blanket and tiny, snuggled into his arms, Piper couldn't help it: she burst into tears. She played it off like she was crying with happiness, but something hit her, hard. Leo was meant to have a daughter of his own, to spoil and to love and to teach to be sweet and kind and caring and brave and to use her gifts wisely, whatever they may be.

Two minutes.

Since her husband's been back and her family has been whole again, she's been so content, focusing on all the good she has in her life, and she's managed to compartmentalize this, so she only thinks about what she wants, what she truly, truly wants, one morning a month. This is the only time she allows herself to consider it: imagining herself, growing rounder again, stealing back all the clothes she's lent Phoebe, dealing with the morning sickness that terrorized each of her first trimesters.

Unlike the last time, or even the first time when he was still working so much, Leo will be there every day of this pregnancy. It will drive her crazy, but only on the surface: she'll know what it cost him, missing out on so much before, and she will do her best not to snipe too much when he's overly solicitous or overly protective or overly adoring.

She will be OK with it. She will be calm and rational and unemotional, and she won't scream at the boys or nag Leo or snap at her sisters because her hormones are out of control. She will go to yoga three times a week, she will faithfully watch her diet and not overindulge on the chocolate peanut butter ice cream she will crave, and she will paint the nursery a nice neutral color, like mint or sunshine.

Three minutes.

She lifts up the hard plastic wand from the counter, and barely glances at it. She's so busy steeling herself against the disappointment, already putting it aside and thinking about her day: the club for a couple of hours, where she needs Leo to take a look at the lock on the back door while she confirms Thursday's deliveries, then down to North Beach to meet Henry and Paige for lunch, and finally be back at preschool to pick up the boys at three.

She barely glances down, and she's so busy knowing what she'll see, she at first fails to notice the word Not is missing.

Pregnant.

She flips it around, holds it up at different angles, squinting her eyes, looking for the phantom word that has to be there, somewhere. Things are good, too good, and she doesn't deserve this, she doesn't deserve to have her husband back, her boys wonderful and healthy, her sisters safe and loved, and her deepest wish fulfilled. It's too much.

"Piper?"

Leo's been watching the clock, too, she suddenly realizes. He slowly opens the door and stands in the doorway with his eyebrows raised.

"Pregnant," she says, holding the plastic stick up toward him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He lifts her up as she drops the test down on the counter, swinging her around the small space, then kisses her through their laughter. She tastes the joy that echoes her own on his lips, tastes the elation and the satisfaction and the hope they'd both been waiting so desperately for.

"You proposed to me in this bathroom," she says, the memory hitting her suddenly. All that fear, all that apprehension. She barely remembers what it was like to be that woman, the one who couldn't say yes.

"It's a good bathroom," he says, his smile stretching all the way to his green eyes as he grins down at her. "So, should we be calling anyone?"

"Not yet." Her pregnancies have always been immediately shared, and for once, she wants to keep this one between them. Just for awhile. They're all so busy now, anyway – Phoebe and Coop with the new baby, Dad with his remodeling, Paige and Henry preparing to move -- that it's easy to justify. Not that she owes anyone anything, not that they'd hold it against her, but still. The only people she wants to know are way too young to understand, and it'd be too cruel to tell them about a baby sister they won't even meet for months, which would feel like a lifetime to Wyatt and Chris.

For now, it's theirs. Piper and Leo's. Just theirs.


End file.
